Statement by the Department of Justice and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence Regarding Cooperation with Private Partners

"As stated in the joint letter from the Attorney General and the Director of
National Intelligence dated February 22, the Department of Justice and the
Intelligence Community have been working assiduously to mitigate the effects of
the uncertainty caused by the failure to enact long-term modernization of the
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978. We learned last night after
sending this letter that, as a result of these efforts, new surveillances under
existing directives issued pursuant to the Protect America Act will resume, at
least for now. We appreciate the willingness of our private partners to
cooperate despite the uncertainty. Unfortunately, the delay resulting from this
discussion impaired our ability to cover foreign intelligence targets, which
resulted in missed intelligence information. In addition, although our private
partners are cooperating for the time being, they have expressed understandable
misgivings about doing so in light of the on-going uncertainty and have
indicated that they may well discontinue cooperation if the uncertainty
persists. Even with the cooperation of these private partners under existing
directives, our ability to gather information concerning the intentions and
planning of terrorists and other foreign intelligence targets will continue to
degrade because we have lost tools provided by the Protect America Act that
enable us to adjust to changing circumstances. Other intelligence tools simply
cannot replace these Protect America Act authorities. The bipartisan Senate
bill contains these authorities, as well as liability protection for those
companies who answered their country’s call in the aftermath of September 11.
We hope that the House will pass this bill soon and end the continuing problems
the Intelligence Community faces in carrying out its mission to protect the
country."